


medusa

by hyphae



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 06:25:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5364812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyphae/pseuds/hyphae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Runette prepares for a confrontation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	medusa

**Author's Note:**

> [pantherophis](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/pantherophis) and I haven't finished the game yet, but I wanted to do a quick character re-interpretation. I'd like to afford Cardinal Forton some dignity when she dies.

Runette stood tall and looked down the bridge of her nose at the fledgeling Shepherd and his entourage. 

The light in his eyes shone bright and naive and they reminded her of her own so long ago. She hated it. Why did they let children grow up believing in the good in all people, in a right way to do all things? It was cruelty. It was just one of the many ways the world was cruel. And bright-eyed lambs like the one before her had no place in such a world. 

Such angry bright eyes. She took a step forward and brought the full force of her will upon them. The humans and seraphim before her winced alike. They chattered amongst themselves about the rarity of such a domain without malevolence. Runette looked on in distaste. Surely they did not believe that all beings who opposed them did so out of malevolence. But of course they did. Of course the Shepherd could not conceive of an enemy acting in the best interests of the people, in full acknowledgement of the consequences of her actions. 

She thought of all she had done for her country. Stepping up to fill the imminently implosive power vacuum left by Masedra when he deserted them, knowing it would mean the dedication of her life. Managing the tensions between the two nations through skirmishes with no great loss of life, feeling every soul that was extinguished weighing down her fingertips. How the rain came when she called it, and never relented. She had not seen her sisters for years. She would not let a child render it all to ash. 

Her gaze was cold and froze them in their place. And she rose above them and her skin felt smooth and slick like scales, and she felt her teeth become dangerously sharp, and hissing, lunging serpents coiled and framed either side of her face and she extended one arm to the Shepherd's company and beckoned. She was powerful and she would protect the order that she had made, til her last breath. 

\--

And to her last breath it would take her. When she could fight no more she raised her slitted eyes to the ceiling and laughed. The children in front of her hung back, wary. Her gaze snapped back at them, and though they didn't deserve to hear this from her, though she owed them nothing - "You have no idea what I've done for this country," she told them, her voice bitter and cold. 

"There's no way we can... change your mind?" the Shepherd asked her, his voice meek, and she just laughs in his face. 

"You think you can come to my country and tell me what's best for my people?" she spat. "You talk a high and mighty game, but you don't know the first thing about Rolance. Travelling around with the seraphim, being a pretty figurehead - please." 

She leveled her gaze with his, an act that would have left him significantly less mobile if she hadn't been exhausted, and injured, and in no shape to expend such efforts. "You came here to this inner sanctum today to commit a murder for the sake of your politics, Shepherd. Have the conviction to see your act through, or get out of my sight." 

His hands raised with his deadly blade, trembling. But it was not his hand that drove the steel into her tired heart. 

A Shepherd who could not even kill on his own. He was looking at her, horrified, unable to tear his eyes away, and she made sure to hold his gaze and sneer as she fell. The ground hit her numbly and and the warmth was seeping out of her body through the small, neat gap in her chest, and she thought about her sisters, and hoped they would die better deaths than hers, and wondered if she would meet them again. 

"May these weary bones find peaceful rest," said the girl in black, and with a practiced motion, wiped the blood off of her knife.


End file.
